It Runs In The Family
by But The Kids Like It
Summary: Peter Rogers-Stark is the ordinary child of two extraordinary parents: Captain America and Ironman, arguably two of the nation's most powerful heroes. He's never wanted anything more than to be as great as them, and a lucky accident at Oscorp Labs just might be his ticket. Welcome to greatest crime-fighting family the world has ever known.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One: In Which Peter Is Bitten By A Radioactive Spider

The fluorescent ceiling lights flickered erratically overhead, casting eerie shadows across the near-empty subway car. Peter Parker leaned his head against a metal pole, savoring its cold solidity against his burning skin. At the other end of the car, a homeless man with a shopping cart sang off-key to himself. Another half-dozen people were scattered across the seats, heads bowed as they listened to music or read the evening paper or simply slept.

A few minutes later, the train lurched to a halt at 33rd Street. The doors slid open with a _ding_ that ricocheted painfully off of Peter's sensitive eardrums, and he winced as a couple entered the car, arguing loudly. In the woman's arms, a baby wailed shrilly.

"She's not a part of our lives anymore," the woman was saying in a no-nonsense, no-excuses tone. "I want her out, Johnny."

The man exploded. "She's my _mother!_ We can't just kick her out of our lives like that! She's-"

"She's a danger to our child! She's _crazy, _Johnny, I can't believe you even let her go on like this for so long. She needs to be institutionalized. You weren't there when I walked in on her. She would have _killed_ him."

Peter gritted his teeth, acutely aware of the sound of his molars grinding together. Beads of sweat rolled down his ribs, and his skin rippled with gooseflesh despite the fact that it felt like a hundred degrees in this subterranean tunnel. His knuckles whitened; his grip tightened on the subway pole as the couple's voices _grated_ on his nerves and their baby shrieked desperately for attention.

Once again, the doors slid open, and Peter walked out. Behind him, the subway pole was dented with finger marks.

It was the spider bite. It had to be. He zipped up his jacket and jammed his hands into his pockets, imagining that he could _feel_ the venom coursing through his veins.

Just a few hours ago, he had been standing on a catwalk in Oscorp Labs with a perfect view of one of the largest collections of genetic research in the world. Just looking at it made his fingers itch. He never would have mentioned it to his father, but he was jealous. Stark Industries was all metal and battery acid; it didn't have anything quite like this.

Something slammed into him, hipchecking him painfully into a lab table. "Be careful!" snapped the man who was working there, steadying a beaker. "This is delicate stuff."

"Sorry," Peter mumbled, moving away. Behind him, Flash Thompson and his cronies jeered.

"Nice job, twinkletoes!" they laughed. Ignoring them, Peter walked faster to catch up with the front of the group.

"These are some of our genetically engineered spiders," their tour guide was explaining. "They are test subjects for a serum that we hope to eventually use as a cure for various human genetic diseases." A couple of the girls squeaked in fright, but Peter stepped closer. Behind the glass, hundreds of spiders spun delicate webs, hanging from the lightest of threads and toeing their way delicately across the walls. They were no bigger than his thumbnail, glossy black with deep purple stripes. In short, they were beautiful.

"Come on, Peter, they're going to leave you behind." Mary Jane Watson was suddenly beside him, tilting her head and smiling, and he felt the blood rise in his cheeks.

"Right, sure, of course," he stammered, rubbing the back of his neck. As he turned to follow her, something plopped onto his shoulder, and he jerked reflexively, swatting at it. Nothing fell onto the ground, however, and he laughed sheepishly at his own paranoia and ran to catch up to Mary Jane.

A moment later, he felt the sharp jab of mandibles sinking into his skin and slapped at it, sucking in a sharp breath. "You okay?" Mary Jane asked, concerned, and he just smiled weakly and nodded. His hand came away empty but for two minuscule drops of blood.

"Hey, kid!" A rough voice snapped Peter out of his reverie, and without thinking- without seeing- he turned to avoid the stranger's hand, slipping past him and bringing his knee up into the guy's gut.

"Sorry!" Peter cried, backing away. "I just- I didn't mean to-" with a snarl, the stranger leapt at him, but once again Peter sidestepped and put out a leg to trip him. The stranger went flying and skidded across the pavement. "Sorry!" Peter yelled again, and then turned tail and ran for the beacon of safety that was Stark Tower.

Inside, the air conditioner dropped his body temperature about thirty degrees, and he immediately began to shiver. Keeping his head down to avoid the late-night laborers who were still streaming out, he made his way down the end of the hall to their personal elevator and pressed the button for the top floor. Inside, he stared at himself in the paneled mirrors. There were dark purple shadows under his eyes, and his cheekbones jutted out even more than usual. Sweat had plastered his hair to his forehead, and his breath came in quick and shallow. Wiping his forehead, he inhaled deeply and tried to make himself presentable for his dads.

The elevator doors slid open on a familiar scene. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out a thousand feet over New York City, and tasteful furniture littered their living and dining rooms. This was what a billion dollars looked like, and Peter knew it. Steve and Tony were on opposite sides of the kitchen island, looking at what would have once been considered Avengers paperwork on a screen. They were too intent on their discussion to notice Peter's arrival at first.

Hoping to simply sneak into his room without having to deal with small talk, he slipped off his sneakers and tried to tiptoe past the kitchen. Steve's head whipped up the moment he came within ten feet of them. "You're home late," he observed, raising his eyebrows.

"Yeah, and it's a school night," Tony chimed in, swiveling around on his stool. "Haven't you ever heard of something called curfew? Because I _swear_ we were just discussing it the other night."

Peter ducked his head. "Yeah, sorry. We had a field trip at Oscorp and I forgot something at school, so it took a while for me to go back and forth." He ducked his head. "I'm kind of tired, so I think I'm going to go to bed now, okay?"

"Don't you want dinner?" Steve called after him. Peter pretended not to hear. As he closed the door, he heard his Pops mutter, "I always answered my father when he spoke to me."

Heaving out a sigh, Peter turned off the lights, divested himself of his clothes, and flopped onto his bed. His body was sticky with perspiration, and his muscles trembled with a mixture of fatigue and adrenaline. He slept restlessly, his eyeballs flickering madly behind their lids as he drowned in personal nightmares and the spider's venom pumped through his heart.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two: In Which Peter and Tony Get Ice Cream

Rolling onto his back, Peter opened his eyes and stared blearily at the ceiling. Sunlight spilled through the cracks in his blinds, casting slatted shadows across the wood- his wake-up call. He yawned and arched his back, loving the way his vertebrae cracked, and then glanced over at his alarm clock.

It read 12:09.

"Shit!" he rasped, stumbling to his feet and into the bathroom. He turned on the sink faucet, and the handle came off in his hand. Confused, he stared at it for a moment, and then gingerly screwed it back into place. He washed his face and brushed his teeth without incident, until he tried to kick the bathroom door closed behind him and the poor thing just came right off its hinges.

"Shit," he repeated through a mouthful of toothpaste. He poked his head outside his bedroom door and looked around. The apartment appeared deserted, and a note was tacked to the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a smiley face. It read: _Peter, I'm at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters right now. Tony is downstairs in the lab with Bruce if you need anything. You had a fever last night, so we let you sleep in this morning. Don't worry; we called the school to let them know you were sick. Feel better. Pops._

He returned to the bathroom at a more sedate pace, pleased with the way things had turned out. As far as he could tell, neither of his dads were suspicious, and now he had the entire day to himself. He spat in the sink and began to get dressed.

Five minutes later, he sat down at the kitchen counter with a bowl of Frosted Flakes and pulled up a holo-screen. "JARVIS, look up everything we have on spider bites." Although he tagged his search with every relevant piece of information- spiders, poisonous spiders, stripy spiders, purple spiders, Oscorp, Norman Osborn, and a list of all of his symptoms- there wasn't so much as a photo of the spider that had bit him. And it had to be that one, didn't it? Common house spiders didn't have that effect on a person.

The back of his neck prickled uneasily, and he closed the screen, suddenly aware that JARVIS was watching him as much as he was watching it. A second later, the elevator opened with a _ding._ "Hey, bud," said Tony, stepping out. "How are you feeling?"

"All right," Peter replied, trying for a smile. "Cereal's good. I mean, obviously." He shook his head, realizing that he had already dropped the ball.

"It popped up on the logs when you started using the computer," Tony explained, hopping up on the stool across from him. "Not that I was spying on you or anything. Spiders, huh? Are you doing a report on yesterday's school trip?"

"Yeah!" Peter almost screwed up again in his over-eagerness to latch onto the lie. "Yeah, it's for school." He cleared his throat.

Tony nodded slowly. "You must have gotten that work ethic from your Pops, because God knows I was a slacker of the first degree when I was your age."

"_Just_ when you were my age?" Peter raised an eyebrow, earning himself a light smack upside the head.

"Cheeky bastard," said Tony fondly. "Listen, if you're feeling up to it, I was thinking we could go out and get ice cream or something. We haven't hung out since you started school again. Don't you miss me?"

Peter rolled his eyes. "Yeah, we haven't seen each other in forever." He set his bowl down in the sink and hopped off the stool. "I won't turn down free ice cream, but just in case you forgot- I'm seventeen, not seven."

"Could've fooled me," Tony retorted.

It was warm for late autumn, and the last golden leaves floated picturesquely to the sidewalk as the pair strolled down Park Avenue. There was nothing flexible about the hours of a career superhero. Sometimes Tony would be around for days, a static part of their living room as he did background checks on potential employees and modified old hardware. At other times, Peter had the entire house to himself, and all he could do was watch the television set with rapt, breathless attention for familiar masks instead of faces. In the timeless words of his father's favorite song: "_The rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof to the night that our flag was still there."_ As long as the fight still went on, he knew there was still someone to fight.

He would never tell them, but it hurt growing up in a family of superheroes. It meant that he could easily lose everyone he had ever cared about in a matter of minutes.

"You look like you're thinking grim thoughts," Tony noted. "It's girl trouble, isn't it? Or is it boys? You know I won't mind either way."

"Neither. Trouble isn't even in my vocabulary," Peter replied airily. "Also, it's girls. I'm pretty sure it's girls."

Tony arched an eyebrow. "Yeah, I was pretty sure too- up until I had my very first fight with Steve Rogers. _Then_ I learned the real meaning of trouble. Look, here's the ice cream truck."

Sure enough, there was Mr. Softee, the air around it thick with methane gas and nostalgia. An ice cream cone smiled down on them from the top of the truck, and a dark-skinned man in a white t-shirt leaned out of the sliding window. "What can I get you two today?"

"One chocolate-vanilla swirl in a cup and a vanilla cone with rainbow sprinkles," Tony replied without missing a beat. Peter scowled.

"You didn't even _ask_ me if that was what I wanted," he complained, nearly snatching the cone out of the ice cream man's hand before he did the math- weak cone, strong fingers- and took it gently.

"But that's _always_ what you want," Tony replied with an infuriating grin. "Shit, I've only got fifty dollar bills and up."

"First world problems," Peter muttered, pulling a few crumpled singles out of his jeans pocket. The ice cream man stared after them as they walked away. "You should really start carrying around real people money if you're going to go out in public. Speaking of which-"

A young blonde woman ran up to them, beaming and breathless. "Hi! I'm so sorry to interrupt you, but are you Tony Stark? Like, Ironman? I'm such a huge fan. Would you sign this for me? Please?" She held out a scrap of notebook paper and a Sharpie.

"Well, because you said please." Tony handed his ice cream to Peter and took the pen. "What's your name?"

"It's Shannon. Oh my God, thank you so much!" The autograph read simply: _Shannon- don't stop believing in a better world. Your pal, Tony Stark._ Beneath it, his signature was scrawled in loopy, illegible cursive. "I just wanted to say thank you for everything you've done," Shannon said, looking up at him with shining eyes as she took her treasured scrap of notebook paper back. "You know, you're not bad looking for a man who wears a mask all the time."

As she walked away, the two of them watched her hips switch hypnotically in her tight jeans. Peter was the first to snap out of it. He punched Tony in the shoulder. "Dad! You're a married man!"

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Tony answered, taking his ice cream back. "And you are going exactly _where_ with this?"

Peter rolled his eyes. "Man, you must really have a thing for blondes."

"Just one." Tony winked archly.

Ten minutes later, they arrived at the playground where Peter had spent a good portion of his post-adoption childhood. He hadn't even realized where they were going until they were standing at the fence, gazing through the bars at small children playing hopscotch on the tarmac.

"I remember when you were that age," Tony said softly. "Heck, I remember when _I_ was that age."

"Playgrounds must have been a lot less fun back then, you know, before they figured out wheels and inclined planes."

"Yeah, we mostly just hit rocks together and listened to the noises they made."

"Stone age recreation."

Shaking his head, Tony slung his arm around Peter's narrow shoulders, and the two of them turned away. "Seriously, though, you'd tell me if anything was up, wouldn't you? I'm the cool dad."

"You'd probably know even before I did. Eyes everywhere, right?" Peter smiled guiltily, and his dad ruffled his hair.

"I love you, kid."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three: In Which Peter Discovers More About Himself and Learns To Cook

It was one of the rare normal days in the Stark-Rogers household. Steve came home earlier than usual, leaving the patrolling up to the younger Avengers for the night. "It's an assessment of their abilities," he said. "They'll call if they need help. What's for dinner?"

"_What's for dinner?"_ Tony stared at his husband incredulously. "What do you mean, what's for dinner? You tell us what's for dinner."

"I'm the only one with a full-time job. _You_ make dinner," Steve argued as he unbuckled his belt and pulled off his boots.

"Right, but let's be honest here. I'm the _real_ breadwinner," Tony pointed out. Peter felt his heart sink as he saw where this was going.

"Fine. Peter, you make dinner," said Steve, hanging up his shield. His son pursed his lips and stood up.

"All right, you guys asked for it. Peanut butter and jelly for dinner it is." As he walked around the kitchen island towards the fridge, he sang out, "It's not _my_ fault my parents are too busy _avenging_ the earth to teach me how to cook. I have no real life skills, but luckily I know how to spot Kree technology. Welcome to life in Stark Tower."

Behind him, he could _feel_ his dads exchanging glances. In his triumph, he nearly ripped the refrigerator door off, but he caught himself halfway and quickly closed it before it could come off completely. Neither of the two had seen it, so he quickly moved to the condiment cabinets. They were located above the stove on the very top shelf, and the tips of his fingers scraped maddeningly on the bottom of the peanut butter jar. Frustrated, he jumped onto the counter and-

-found that Steve had pulled the jar off of the shelf for him. "You can get down now," he said, handing it over. "For future reference, the kitchen counter is not a gymnasium. You can always ask me to get something down for you."

"Yeah... Thanks, haha." He rubbed the back of neck uneasily and glanced at the fridge. "Or maybe you guys could teach me how to cook. Or something. You know."

Again with the exchanging glances. Steve cocked his head slightly, some strange emotion growing in his eyes as he looked at Peter. It was the same look he had given him when Tony had told him about their earlier outing to the playground. Peter could write HTML and derive algorithms and read binary, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out what was going on in his own father's head.

"Sure." Steve smiled. "We can make burgers. Everyone loves burgers."

"It's the all-American food," said Tony with a click of the tongue. "Did your Pops ever tell you about the time he was almost in a hamburger commercial? They brought back the Rockettes for him and everything. It was going to be spectacular, but for whatever reason he decided not to do it."

"We don't talk about that," Steve said, cheeks reddening. He opened the fridge, and the door fell clean off.

For a couple of heartbeats, the three of them simply gaped.

Then Peter snickered, and Tony snorted, and then they burst into laughter. Steve looked helplessly from one to the other, then down at the fridge door still in his hand, his face comic in its consternation.

"He looks so confused," Tony gasped, wiping at streaming eyes.

"Is this a prank?" Steve demanded.

"Yeah, Pops, we removed the fridge door _as a prank,"_ Peter answered, taking the door from his father's hands and propping it up against a counter. "A bit wound-up, huh?"

"This has _never_ happened to me before," said Steve, sending the other two into gales of laughter once again.

"I can fix it," Tony said confidently. "You two get on those burgers. I'll be hungry by the time I'm done with this."

Tony took to the fridge with his toolbox and a welder, and Steve carried the frozen burgers to the grill they kept outside on the roof. For a moment, the two of them stood there, looking out over the warm, steady lamplight of apartment buildings, the fluorescent uniformity of nearby office blocks, and the somehow sinister blinking red lights at the end of the rods that topped the skyscrapers. "Are you cold?" Steve asked as he turned on the grill.

"Nah, I'm good." Peter tore open the package of hamburgers, and then something very strange happened.

He found it stuck to his hands.

It was as though someone had put superglue on the hamburger package, but Peter knew better than that. Tony hadn't had nearly enough time or warning. Besides, there was no sign of the adhesive. No, the plastic was simply stuck to Peter's skin.

He struggled mutely with it as Steve doddered obliviously over the grill. "Pay attention, Peter," he said without turning around. "Hand me the burgers, will you?"

Panic mode kicked in, and Peter flailed frantically until the package dropped to the deck and Steve turned around. "What the hell are you doing?" he demanded.

"Uh, sorry, Pops," Peter grinned sheepishly and picked up the hamburgers. "Here you go." One by one, Steve took the spatula and flipped them onto the grill, and the way they sizzled practically made Peter salivate. He didn't think he'd ever been so hungry in his life.

"Right, that's that," said Tony, ambling out onto the roof. "Tony Stark, saving the day as per usual. What've we got here, then?" He came up behind Steve and wrapped his arms around his waist, standing on his tiptoes to try and see over the taller man's shoulder. Peter escaped unnoticed and ran into his room. He was back in a few seconds, a camera in his hands, and he made sure to capture the moment on film. Steve caught sight of him and blushed, but Tony distracted him with a kiss, and the flash went off once again.

It wasn't until later that night, when Peter was sure that both of his parents were asleep, that he made his way down the stairs towards the training center on the floor below. Here was a room without the signature panoramic windows of Stark Tower. It was large and wood paneled, and in its center was a boxing ring. A row of punching bags hung at the other end of the room, and racks of weights lined the walls.

This was where Steve went when he couldn't fall asleep at night. This was where Tony went when he needed to blow off steam. And on a few rare occasions, this was where Peter went when he needed to hide the bruises from his dads. It was completely soundproof. He could scream until his throat was sandpaper and no one would hear him.

In short, it was a sanctuary.

They had a collection of punching bags, because of Steve's tendency to go through them like disposable napkins. Peter looked down at his hands, and then at the thick leather. Cocking his fist back, he laid into the punching bag with a kind of ferocity his body had never been able to express before. Every trip in the hallway- every stolen dollar bill- every cruel taunt- every blow to the back, kick to the chest, strike to the jaw, punch to the face- ! It only took a couple dozen hits to knock the punching bag right off its chain. Without pause, Peter moved to the next one. And the next one. And the next one.

Then he righted them all again, because really, who needed their parents asking questions? Not him. Then he'd have to explain how he was suddenly the teenage equivalent of Captain America.

It came instinctively to him. He could feel his acrobatic repertoire in his muscles. Matrix-style backbends and flips, faster-than-a-speeding-bullet reflexes and sticky finger to boot- it was exhilarating.

It was a secret.

There was no telling how his parents would react. Here was his greatest dream coming true, and he couldn't tell the two people he cared about most.

Now all he needed was to learn how to fly, and he had a feeling that he knew just how to do it.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four: In Which Peter Gets Into A Fight

The second hand ticked by agonizingly slowly, and Peter's eyelids drooped lower with every tick. His physics teacher's voice was better than Ambien, and he found himself stuck in the unpleasant cycle of nodding off to sleep, a second of some dream, only to have his head fall forward and jerk awake, dazed and disoriented. Finally, he gave in and rested his chin on his folded arms, succumbing to sleep.

A sharp elbow to the ribs scattered the remnants of his dream, and Peter flinched away instinctively. Controlling the reflex to attack, he smiled dopily at Harry Osborn and said, "What'd you do that for?"

"Pay attention," Harry hissed back. "I need to pass this class."

Peter rolled his eyes. "Gee, that'd be a miracle of epic proportions," he said, earning himself a hard punch to the shoulder.

"Listen, there's a party at Drew Larson's house tonight." Harry stared straight ahead at the blackboard with glazed eyes and spoke out of the corner of his mouth. "Do you want to come?"

"_Me?"_ Peter sat straight up in his seat.

At the front of the classroom, Mr. Hernandez sighed in irritation and said, "Parker, since you have so much to say, why don't _you_ explain string theory to the class? I'm sure your classmates would take it much better coming from you. Unless, of course-"

"I'd love to, sir," Peter interrupted cheekily. "String theory is the idea that everything in the universe- matter, dark matter and anti-matter- are made up of tiny, oscillating subatomic particles, which would be the _strings_ here referred to. It really gets quite complicated, but string theory would explain and bring together all natural forces, such as gravity and electromagnetism."

Someone snickered at the front of the class, and Mr. Hernandez flushed angrily. "A crude and oversimplified explanation, but technically correct. _Did everyone catch that?_"

"Hey, Parker!" Flash shouted as the students shoved and jostled one another in their race to exit the classroom. "Your mother's so fat, her _g-string_ could bring together all natural forces."

_Low blow, picking on a guy's dead mom,_ thought Peter, but instead he said, "You spent the entire class period thinking of that one, didn't you, Flash? I won't even ruin your day. You can keep that one. Recycle it, even." A hard shove caught him in the small of the back, and he whipped around to glare at Flash, who looked shocked that Peter hadn't just curled up in a ball and called uncle. Without warning, he ran at Flash and rammed him in the stomach, knocking them both to the floor. Flash reared back and slammed his forehead into Peter's eye and simultaneously kneed him in the gut. The smaller boy was knocked back onto his knees, tiny bluebirds and stars making rings around his head, but he sprung to his feet before his opponent and kicked Flash hard in the ribs before he could get up.

"Want some more, Thompson?" he asked, backing up a couple of paces. "Come and get it." The rest of the students had gathered around, jeering and goading. Peter spread his arms wide, and then slapped his chest and quirked a challenging eyebrow. If Flash backed down now, he'd as well as be cutting off his own manhood.

With a wordless snarl, Flash got to his feet advanced on him, his meaty hands balled into fists. "You're going to regret this, Parker. You can still run home to your mommy if you want." He paused a moment, as though he really expected Peter to run, and then swung.

Instead of dodging, Peter caught the blow on his forearm and twisted Flash's arm in its socket so that his palm was pinned against his back. Flash grunted in pain, and a sense of savage pleasure thrilled through Peter as he wrenched Flash's arm a little tighter, bringing him up onto his tiptoes.

"_What the hell are you doing?"_

Mary Jane stood in the doorway of the physics classroom, staring at the debacle with snapping eyes. Peter looked over at her, and then back at Flash. His eyes widened, and he let go of Flash's arm and stepped back, wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans. Ducking his head, he escaped down the hall to his locker with Mary Jane's horrified glare burning holes in the back of his sweater.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five: In Which Peter Attends A Party

The backbeat thrummed through Peter's skeleton, jarring every extremity. He bounced his leg restlessly and wiped his hands on his jeans, craning his neck to search the crowd once again for any familiar faces. The plastic cup in his hand was moist with condensation and down to its very last dregs, and Peter was starting to feel a bit queasy. At the back of his tongue was a bitter alcoholic aftertaste that no amount of swallowing could get rid of.

"You look lost."

A girl had sidled up to him unnoticed; she smiled disarmingly up at him now. Another stranger in a sea of strangers, but so far the only person who had acknowledged his presence. Peter smiled uncomfortably back at her. "I'm not, I'm not lost," he laughed, rubbing the back of his head. Whoever she was, she didn't go to his school. There was no one quite like her around where he lived.

Her hair was cropped short and curled around her ears, and she wore a Streetlight Manifesto t-shirt with the sleeves cut off and a neckline that dipped. Her jeans were a size too big and held up by a thick leather belt; on her slender wrist was a heavy silver watch. Long, darkly lovely eyelashes framed narrow brown eyes.

"I'm Diana," she said.

"Pete," he reciprocated.

"I guess you're not much of a party person either, huh? Or is it the music?" She played absently with her earring as she spoke, and Peter watched the tiny silver hoop flash against her amber skin in fascination. There was something endearing about the anxious way her fingers, with their chipped blue paint, rolled the ring through her skin again and again.

"Both, I guess," he said. "I don't really know why I came here. Everyone here hates me." He mentally smacked himself for that last comment, but it made the corners of her lips twitch up a little. She pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered him one, but he shook his head.

"Suit yourself. Boy, it's hot in here."

"Yeah." Peter wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, and then hastily wiped the back of his hand on the seat of his pants. "Do you, um, want to go outside?" His heartbeat quickened at the proposition, but she took it casually and nodded.

Out on Drew's stoop, it was a good ten degrees cooler, and the sweat on Peter's skin dried instantly. He shivered a little as he and Diana sat down on the steps with their knees just barely touching through a couple of thread's worth of fabric. "My light's out," she said sadly as she flicked her lighter until her thumb was raw, and came up with only sparks.

"Here, let me." Peter pulled a book of matches out of his pocket, and she turned her face to close to his. He struck a match, and they both cupped their hands around the cigarette as he brought the flame between them. It flickered across their skin in eddies and swirls, and she sucked in a deep breath, the embers at the end of her cigarette glowing. The flame went out, and Peter dropped the match on the ground as Diana turned her head to the side and exhaled a perfect smoke ring.

"So, you go to school with Drew?" she asked.

"Yeah. You don't, though. I mean, I don't recognize you. Do you?"

"Nah," she said. "I go to church with that asshole; can you believe it?"

The idea was undeniably funny.

Their conversation wandered then, from bands that they liked to concerts they had attended, to skate tricks and somehow briefly to sex, and then to people they both knew. Diana was in the middle of a sentence when the door burst open and a group of teenagers practically fell out, shrieking and laughing. One girl tripped right over Diana, kicking her in the head, and stumbled away across the street without stopping to look back. Diana scowled and rubbed the back of her skull. "That girl is in my AP English class," she said. "I hate her."

"Do you like anyone?" Peter asked curiously.

Her eyes widened a fraction. "Oh, sure I do. I guess I must come off as pretty misanthropic, huh? It's just that I don't like anyone _here._ I don't even know why I came." Looking suddenly very self-conscious, she checked her watch and said, "Wow, it's nearly midnight. I may look lawless, but I've got curfew, you know."

"Oh, yeah!" Peter smacked his forehead and jumped to his feet. "Yeah, me too. Um, do you want to... I could..." Then a familiar noise filled the air between them, and Peter winced as he recognized the Doctor Who theme song. "Sorry, 'scuse me for a second." He pulled his phone out of his pocket. "_Yes,_ Dad?"

"Peter?" Tony's voice crackled through the receiver. "I'd just like you to know that it is 11:58, and our agreed curfew was midnight. I expect you to be inside Stark Tower in two minutes."

"I'm not going to be there in two minutes."

"Then I suggest you set the thrusters to one hundred percent, so as to minimize the consequences of your tardiness."

There was a brief scuffle on the other end of the line, and then Steve said, "Peter, are you drunk? You can tell us if you are. We'll come and get you."

"No!" Diana snickered at his tone. "No, I'm fine. I'm leaving now. I was just-" he lowered his voice. "I was going to, you know, maybe walk this girl home. 'Cause it's late, you know."

"A girl?" Steve sounded suddenly interested, and then shifted gears to pride. "I raised you right."

Tony grabbed the phone again. "A _girl?_ What's her name? Are you bringing her over?"

"Sorry, can't hear you! See you soon!" Peter hung up and turned back to Diana. "Sorry about that. Um..." He rubbed the back of his neck and kicked at a crushed soda can. "Do you want me to walk home?" When she looked hesitant, he quickly added, "I think my dad would kill me if I let you go home alone this late at night."

"Well, I guess if it means saving your life..." she lifted one shoulder in a delicate shrug. "I live in the East Village. This way."

"Yeah, I know where the East Village is, thanks."

"Jeez, okay." They fell into step beside one another, hands shoved into pockets. After a moment, Diana said, "I feel like we've exhausted all possible conversation topics for people who have just met."

"Yeah," Peter agreed.

"Do you want to hear my favorite song?" She pulled out her phone and handed him one ear bud. "Even if you don't like it, it'll alleviate some of the awkwardness."

They walked with their shoulders bumping, tethered to one another by the headphones. "Is this the band on your shirt?" Peter asked, and she grinned and nodded.

"See this scar?" She pointed to a dark stripe on the bridge of her nose. "I got this at one of their shows last year. Someone threw a Red Bull can at my face. There was blood everywhere."

"Head wounds bleed a lot," he said. Diana nodded in sage agreement.

Despite the late hour, the East Village was still in full swing. Golden streetlight bounced off of cheap plastic jewelry and specks of glitter; studs shone dully on every conceivable article of clothing for sale. An androgynous fellow with a magenta comb-over strode by in leather hot pants and combat boots, stainless steel poking out of every bit of cartilage. Peter watched him pass with round eyes.

"My house is just down the street," Diana said, stopping beneath a traffic light. She clasped her hands in front of her and looked down at her sneakers. "So, um, goodnight, I guess. Thanks for walking me home."

"Oh, yeah, no problem." Peter sucked in a breath. "Could I- can I have- no, never mind." He shook his head. "Sorry, um..."

"Can I have your number?" she blurted out, and he smiled bemusedly and pulled a sharpie out of his back pocket. He'd never tell, but he always kept a marker on him in the rare case of exactly this scenario. Finally, it was paying off.

He scribbled his digits on the smooth palm of her hand, and she did the same to him. "Goodnight," he said, staring at the swell and curve of her lips.

"Goodnight," she agreed, ducking her head, and then turned and ran up the street. He watch her go for a moment, and then turned and skipped away down the street, smiling to himself.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six: In Which Spider-Man Is Born

Spider-Man crouched on the roof of the Baxter Building, looking down over the city below through the reflective eyes of his mask. It was ten o'clock, and back in Stark Tower, the door to Peter Parker's room was locked. He had set the security camera in his room to a continuous loop of him sleeping and used his Stark-issued phone to erase all traces of his departure through the bedroom window.

Ever since he was a little kid, all Peter had wanted was to join the Avengers. Every Christmas, he had wished for his powers, wished for his suit, wished for anything that would put him on equal footing with his fathers. Now he had his ticket in, and he had finally realized the futility of all his wishing.

There was no way in heaven or earth that Tony and Steve would allow him into the Avengers. If they knew, they would never let him fight. Peter didn't blame them, of course- the risks you take and the risks you let your children take rarely ever coincide. He was a big boy. He knew that. He also knew that he had to do this.

Spider-Man was indubitably super, but was he hero material? The world was about to find out.

He somersaulted off the roof, a yell tearing itself free of his throat, and plummeted towards the ground. A few dozen feet away from becoming a spider-shaped spot on the concrete, he twitched his wrist, and yards of delicate white thread shot out to attach itself to the nearest skyscraper. His stomach continued to drop even as he was jerked forward, a red-and-blue pendulum swinging above Fifth Avenue.

As he made his way downtown, he gave Hell's Kitchen a wide berth. He had no desire to mess with Daredevil's territory. As heroes went, Double-D was the opposite of the Avengers, but Spidey had no less respect for him. There was the glory and the importance of being a world-saver and a war-winner like his fathers, and then there were the nine-to-five masks.

There was no glory in the job, but someone had to do it, didn't they? Someone had to stop the rapes and muggings, the convenience store hold-ups and desperate, spur-of-the-moment murders. Someone had to give the Avengers and the Fantastic Four and the X-Men a world worth saving.

Who better to do it than your friendly neighborhood spider?

He dropped down into the Lower East Side as a muffled cry reached his super-sensitive ears. It was the distinctive sound of a hand being pressed over someone's mouth. With the finesse of a neurosurgeon, he crawled down several stories of fire escapes without making a sound. Below, a man had a woman shoved up to a wall, one hand on her collar, the other over her mouth. She whimpered in terror, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes and over his fingers.

"Stop _fighting_ me," he hissed furiously. "I'm not playing games here. I don't want to hurt you. I saw how you looked at me- you want this. Just let me..." his voice lowered, and he pressed his lips to her neck.

"I don't think so, Doctor Acula." Spider-Man landed feet-first on the bigger man's shoulders, driving him to his knees and forcing himself to release the woman. Sobbing, she fled into the darkness.

The man threw himself at Spidey, who did a neat backflip out of the way and dispatched him with a roundhouse kick to the head. "Well, that was easy. I'll be around all week, folks," he announced, bowing deeply. "I'm happy to take out the garbage."

Confident and satisfied with one win under his belt, Spidey took to the rooftops again. He stopped two muggings in the Lower East Side, one in Chelsea, and an attempted armed robbery in Chelsea before returning to Stark Tower at four am. He had left the wanted burglar dangling outside the nearest precinct and let the muggers go. His torso was mottled with bruises from the few lucky strikes his opponents had gotten in, plus a couple of web-slinging mishaps, but several criminals would be going home tonight with broken wrists.

He reentered his room via the window, changed into his pajamas, and collapsed into bed. Just before he fell asleep, he closed the window and disabled the video loop, returning JARVIS to its normal functioning state. In the backpack under his bed, the Spider-Man suit lay crumpled and waiting to be donned once again.

"Rise and shine, big guy!"

Tony barged into the room not three hours later, bringing with him the tantalizing smells of bacon and coffee. Peter groaned and rolled over, trying to stop himself from salivating. His stomach growled hungrily and he needed to pee like nobody's business, but nothing short of the return of Galactus was going to get him out of bed.

Steve appeared behind Tony, a spatula in one hand, and rested his chin happily on his husband's shoulder. "He's cute when he's sleepy," he said with a sigh. Peter groaned. His parents were in a rare mood right now. He could just tell- they didn't just love each other today, they were _in love_. They'd never leave him alone now. "I made chocolate chip pancakes shaped like dinosaurs," Steve added.

Muttering in frustration, Peter rolled out of bed and onto the floor with a _thump._ "Give... me..." hr dragged himself across the floor dramatically and latched onto Tony's leg. "Carry meeee."

"What's the magic word?"

Peter looked up, eyes wide. "Daddy?"

Grunting with the effort, Tony grabbed his son under the arms and pulled him to his feet. "You're _taller_ than me," he complained, wrapping one arm around Peter's waist and towing Peter into the kitchen, where he collapsed into a chair, reminiscent of a gangly rag doll.

"Feed me," he said, and his fathers happily obliged.

After breakfast, the trio gathered around the sofa set. "JARVIS, find the latest episode of Jersey Shore and play it," Tony ordered. The other two groaned in disappointment.

"I can't believe that's a real show," said Steve. "I can't believe that's _reality."_

"Should have stayed in the ice, Pops." Peter patted his father on the shoulder sympathetically. "Although I'm pretty sure the amount of aerosol can hairspray used in just the New Jersey area would speed up global warming enough to melt you out of there in no time. Now, don't even get me started on Snooki's hair. What is she_ hiding_ in there, the Crown Jewels? Oy vey."

"Quiet, you two! I think this is the one where they go to Italy."

"They can stay in Italy, too." Tony punched Peter lightly in the stomach, and then recoiled, shaking his hand. "Have you been holding out on us? Come look at this, Cap." He lifted his son's shirt up, revealing Peter's muscled torso, complete with last night's cuts and bruises.

Steve looked him over critically. "Where did you get these?"

"He's talking about the bruises _and_ the rock-hard abdominals," Tony added.

For a split second, barely a hair's worth of time, Peter considered really telling them the truth. The consequences would be much lower if he told them now, rather than them finding out months or even years down the line. They would come around to his way of thinking eventually, and then Tony could help him build a better suit, and Steve could help him hone his strength and speed. They would be the number one crime-fighting family, America's darlings.

All this ran through his mind in a moment, and then he shook his head. "Alert the media," he said mockingly. "We've been playing tackle football in gym. Gary Lo fouled me the other day. I think you should call his mother and tell her to have a talk with him."

His parents were silent for a moment. Then Tony dropped his shirt and said, "He plays dirty, you play dirty." _Crisis averted._

When Tony turned away, Steve shook his head. "I'm proud of you," he whispered in Peter's ear. "You're wise kid, Peter. Wiser than me and wiser than your father, and I know that you're going to get farther than either of us. Than both of us put together."

A blush rose in Peter's cheeks, and he quickly said, "Yeah, I appreciate your faith in me, Pops, but I actually had a question concerning the legality of using elbows..."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven: In Which Peter Parker Runs Towards Danger (Twice)

The headlines read: "Masked Menace Attacks Manhattan", "Spider-Mess", "Spider-Man Causes Blackout", "WANTED: Spider-Man" and "New York's Pest Problem". The people said: "He's a hero," "He's a criminal," "He saved my life," "I just want to know who he is," and "He's exactly what New York needed."

Whether they hated him or loved him, over the course of a few months, Spider-Man had become positively famous. It had started to go to his head, until Christmas Eve rolled around and Peter Parker realized that between studying for midterms and crime-busting, he hadn't bought anyone any Christmas gifts at all.

"These are all _artsy,"_Peter complained as they made their second loop around Union Square. "No one in my family is artsy but my Pops, and _he_ thinks modern art is a conspiracy to put five-year-olds in charge of the media. They all like guns and- and- _boots._"

"I understand completely," Diana replied sympathetically, linking arms with him. "My family likes guns too. Also, leather jackets and storage containers." It was a running joke between them- that Peter's family _might_ just be superheroes, and Diana's _might_ just be the mafia. All completely fiction, though, of course. Still, they'd never actually met each other's parents.

"Maybe I should just get them books," Peter sighed, and turned towards Barnes and Noble. His toes were freezing inside his shoes, and snow had gotten into the gap between his jeans and the tops of his boots.

"Can never go wrong with books," agreed Diana. "Well, actually, you can. A few years ago, my dad bought my mom a book on how to give better fellatio. Needless to say, he slept on the couch all the way through to New Years."

"See, I'd never do that. I like to teach by example," Peter explained, drawing a laugh from her. They entered the warm foyer of the bookstore and sighed in unison as the feeling returned to their extremities in pins and needles.

They stayed there until closing time, curled up next to the radiator with a stack of books on either side. When they were finally kicked out, it was with twenty extra pounds of literature in green plastic bags. "Do you think you could get away for a few minutes tomorrow so I can give you your present?" Diana asked as they trudged towards the train station.

"Yeah, sure. We have a really tight schedule that my Pops makes every year, though, so I'm not sure I'll be able to do anything during the day. How do you feel about waking up really early and being the first person I see on Christmas morning?" He smiled in what he hoped was a charming way.

"How early are we talking?" she wanted to know, but she was already saying yes in the coy tilt of her eyes when she looked up at him. He bent down and kissed her swiftly on the cheek.

"Five am at our halfway point, whaddya say? I promise to bring coffee."

"All right. I like mine black." They kissed once more, and then went their opposite ways. Now all Peter had to do was actually _get _Diana a present, and that was going to be the most difficult task of all. What did you buy for your girlfriend of two months, anyway? Jewelry? She didn't wear jewelry. Books? Too impersonal. Clothes? Yeah, right.

He walked all the way home in the subzero temperatures thinking about it. The winter sun had set hours ago, and the streets were emptying and the lights brightening as people hurried home to wait for Santa Claus. All the stores were closing up, gates rattling and locks clicking up and down the avenues.

It took two hours to reach Stark Tower, due to a couple of incidents in which Spider-Man had to put down his shopping bags and get his hands dirty. Afterwards, he promised himself that he would never walk home late at night again. "Merry Christmas," he said to one thief, once he had returned the handbag to its rightful owner. "I'm letting you go. If I catch you again, you're screwed. Ten bucks you find coal in your stocking tomorrow, though. Jesus forgives; Santa doesn't."

He would have made it in the nick of time for Avengers family dinner, too, if it weren't for the fire. Somewhere downtown- yes, _back_ in the direction he had come from- flames were licking the stars from the roof of an apartment building. Naturally, it had to be residential, rather than a construction site or empty office building. Peter stashed his things behind a dumpster on 34th Street and pulled his mask on.

The firetrucks arrived at the same time as he. A couple of them cheered for Spider-Man, a couple of them scowled, and then they tucked their personal feelings in their jacket pockets and got down to business.

The fire had begun on the eighteenth floor, near the top of the building, allowing most of the inhabitants to escape unharmed. At this point, no one on the eighteenth story could have survived- every window and hall crawled with white-hot flames, and the two levels above were in danger of collapsing. Spider-Man headed right for the heart of the blaze, kicking in a nineteenth-story window and rolling into someone's living room.

A family of four was huddled in the middle of the carpet, while their father stood with his hands pressed to the door to feel the heat of the air outside. "Time to go," Spidey said, ignoring their shouts of surprise. He scooped up the smallest kid and bent down. "Can you get on my back and hold on?" he asked the older one. "I promise I won't let you fall, no matter what." The girl bit her lip and nodded, climbing onto his back and wrapping her arms around his neck in a chokehold. Spidey stood with a grunt and nodded to the parents. "I'll be back," he said, and swung out of the window.

When he returned, the floor groaned under his entrance, and the woman whimpered. "Take my wife first," said the man, and they exchanged a nod- man-to-man, one might say. As Spider-Man swung from building to ground, building to ground, he prayed for a miracle, because that was really the only thing that would save the people on the top floor. The concrete walls groaned and expanded in the heat, and the crowd of people on the sidewalk grew.

He reached apartment 19E to find an old man standing in front of his door, one hand on the doorknob, despite the warnings that the firemen had been shouting through their megaphones. If there was any fire in the hall, opening the door would release a blast of air that would feed the flames and create an instant fireball.

"Don't do that," Spidey warned, and ran forward to pull the guy away from the door. Either the old man didn't hear him, or he didn't care- either way, Spidey was too late. He ducked into the kitchen just as a maelstrom of fire came howling through the doorway and cut off his escape route.

Sweat ran down his temples and ribs, and he jumped up on the kitchen counter with a rolling pin in his hand and proceeded to smash a hole in the ceiling. He jumped through and into the floor above as fire swallowed the place where had been standing.

A girl perched on the windowsill of unit 20E, arms spread wide and eyes closed. "No!" Spider-Man shouted as she jumped, her nightgown billowing out around her. He jumped after her, grabbed the side of the building, and shot out a web line that caught her around the waist and lowered her to safety, his heart throbbing in his throat.

With an ominous creak, the floor began to buckle. Spider-Man dove in through the neighboring window and began to search the apartment, calling out. Even through the mask, smoke filled his lungs and made his eyes water. He kicked down the wall between two apartments, figuring it was all going to come down anyway, and found three children huddled on a bed looking up at him with wide, fearful eyes.

"Come on," he said. "I'm getting you out of here. Follow me-" he coughed- "okay?" He led them to the window and lowered the first one down, none too slowly, on a web line. Something crashed nearby, and he cursed under his breath. "Contact me with your therapy bills later," he told the other two, and dropped them both out the window. There was no way to secure the other end of his web to something else without slamming them into the wall of the building, so he was forced to support the kids with his wrists until the firemen caught them and set them on the ground.

He ran at the wall, breaking through it with his shoulder. A girl was standing at the window, clutching her dog in her arms while the firemen tried to get their act together and position the trampoline. Spider-Man appeared beside her and poked his head out the window. "Ready?" he yelled.

"Affirmative!" yelled a fireman through his megaphone. "Jump!"

Instead, she threw her damn dog. He barked loudly as he fell two hundred feet to the trampoline and bounced. "Okay, let's go," Spidey said, grabbing her around the waist and jumping out the window just as the building collapsed behind them. Inside, someone screamed, and his heart went cold.

He hadn't saved them all, then.

Once they were both safely on the ground, he stepped back to look at the building. Its tallest wall stood barely twenty feet high now. Nothing but a cockroach could have survived the wreckage. Behind him, a woman screamed and sobbed, on her knees in the middle of the street.

"Spider-Man!" A reporter shoved her microphone into his face. "Spider-Man, can you tell us what-"

He shook his head and took off running, disappearing into the dark streets.

Peter arrived at Christmas dinner an hour late, after washing the soot from his face, throwing up in a trash can, and checking his eighteen missed calls. "I'm sorry," he said as he walked into the dining room and halted conversation. "Um, merry Christmas, everyone."

"You're going to be in big trouble at some point in the near future," Tony told him sternly. "But it's Christmas Eve, so I'll let it slide." Natasha and Clint, who had been away on a three-month assignment, got up to hug him. As the two shyest people at the table, Bruce and Peter exchanged awkward science-bro greetings.

"What were you doing?" Steve asked quietly, leaning against the kitchen counter as Peter washed his hands at the sink.

"Nothing," Peter replied, and coughed harshly, spitting something black into the sink. "I think I'm coming down with something. Um, the trains were delayed. 'Cause of Christmas, I guess. I'm really sorry. I couldn't pick up any of your phone calls 'cause I was underground."

Blue eyes locked on amber, and Peter could taste his secret when he ran his tongue along his teeth. He wanted to say something, he really did- he rubbed the back of his neck, accidentally touching a burn, and hissed in pain. "I'm really sore" was his excuse when Steve looked at him funny. "Let's go eat, all right?" Steve smiled and tweaked Peter's nose, then led him back into the dining room.

"I've just received intel that the vigilante known as 'Spider-Man' stopped a robbery and saved several people from a burning building earlier this night," Natasha said, sounding impressed.

"'Just received intel'?" Clint snorted. "Natasha, you read that on CNN from your phone."

"Real heroes don't take holidays, I guess." Bruce tipped his head back and down an entire glass of wine without pausing to breathe. Tony raised an eyebrow at him, and then refilled his glass.

"I _received_ _intel_ from CNN!"

"Heroes?" Tony scoffed. "You think Spider-Man is a hero? He's just some acrobat who runs around helping old ladies cross the street."

"Sounds like the definition of a hero to me," Steve replied, passing the salt to Peter.

"Well, okay- and the _real_ heroes are your neighborhood firemen and policemen, I know. But it's not like he's saved the world several times or invented a new source of clean and theoretically infinite energy," Tony retorted huffily.

"Stop being jealous," Steve told his husband in an irritatingly unruffled way. "I think Spider-Man would make a good Avenger. He's obviously smart and dedicated to the people. He has superior strength and reflexes, and gets around pretty quick too."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Tony held up his hands. "Now we're inviting him into the Avengers?"

"I didn't _say_ that. Obviously he hasn't been tested enough yet, and we don't even know who he really is or how to find him-"

"Spider-signal?" Clint suggested.

"- so no, but I'm just saying that I admire him. It's hard to be a solo hero. I hope nothing happens to him, that's all. And maybe, if he's still around in the future, he _will_ be an Avenger."

"I, for one, wouldn't mind having the Spider-Man on my side," Bruce commented, salting his potatoes and deliberately avoiding Tony's accusing eyes.

"He'd be a valuable asset in the field, but I'd need to know who he really is," Natasha decided. "Otherwise, how would we know we could trust him? We still wouldn't know for _sure,"_ she added, "but it would be better if we knew what his motives were. It seems unlikely, but he _could_ be a really determined baddie posing as a hero in order to infiltrate us."

"Maybe he's just a nice guy in a mask," put in Peter.

"Or that," Natasha agreed without conviction.

"Whatever," Tony grumbled. "But if you ask me, he'd crumble in a second under _real_ pressure."

Peter stayed up all night wrapping presents and trying to figure out what he could give Diana. At four am, he showered, brushed his teeth, pulled on his Spider-Man suit (it allowed him to be prepared at all times _and_ offered extra warmth!), put on his clothes, and then brushed his teeth again.

Before he left, he made two cups of coffee and sealed them in thermoses. The loud gurgling of the coffee machine made him wince, but his parents' door stayed firmly closed. Beneath the Christmas tree were at least a dozen presents of varying shapes and sizes, including the ones he had placed there at three in the morning.

He tiptoed out of the house at half past four, simultaneously sleepy and hyper from his all-nighter. Rather than wait thirty minutes for the next train or bus, he rode his bike to the halfway point on 25th Street. Diana met him on the corner, her cheeks flushed with cold.

"Merry Christmas," she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. He brushed her hair away from her face, leaned down and kissed her.

"Merry Christmas," he smiled, and handed her one of the thermoses. She smiled shyly back at him and pressed a small box covered in reindeer wrapping paper into his hand. Before he could figure out how to tell her that he hadn't gotten her anything, Manhattan interrupted.

The ground rippled beneath them, tossing them into one another, and the air was ripped apart by a sonic wave so loud that it rendered them instantly deaf. The concrete bucked and cracked beneath them, and windows shattered all around. Glass rained down, flashing rainbows through the pre-dawn dark. When Peter pressed his hands to his ears, they came away bloody.

"Are you okay?" he asked Diana, although he couldn't hear his own voice. She shook her head and rubbed at a cut on the bridge on her nose. He pulled her hand away and said, "Don't touch it." They stood on rubbery legs, leaning against each other and trying to clear the ringing from their heads.

A moment later, they saw it: the Empire State Building had changed from Christmas colors to a sickly green, and hovering beside it was a ship emblazoned with the word HYDRA.

Pulling out his phone, Peter typed, _I have to go. Get home. Get out of the city if you can. Stay safe._ He showed the text to her, and she set her jaw and nodded. The last time he saw her, her pupils were dilated in fear, and she stood on the corner and blew him a kiss as he sprinted towards the Empire State Building.


End file.
